told even to its members. As they consequently declared that they knew nothing about it, they were commonly called Know-Nothings. The Democrats, with Buchanan as their candidate, carried the election (p. 253). 6. The presidential contest in the fall of 1860 saw four candidates in the field, Breckinridge, Douglas, Bell, and Lincoln. The first, the candidate of one wing of the Democratic party, was in favor of carrying slavery into the Territories; the second, the candidate of the other wing of the party, announced that the people of the territories ought to decide the question of slavery for themselves. Bell, the nominee of the American, or, as it was now called, the Constitutional Union Party, evaded the question of slavery altogether; while Lincoln, the Republican candidate, was opposed to the further extension of slavery (p. 255). Lincoln's election was the signal for the secession movement. Lincoln, the Republicans were again successful (p. 290). In 1864, with 7. The Republican party, after the great civil war, holding that the Southern States that had united as the Confederate States of America could only be admitted to all their former rights in the Union on terms satisfactory to Congress, nominated Grant for the presidency. His opponent was Horatio Seymour, of New York. Grant was elected (p. 297). His competitor four years later was Horace Greeley who had been nominated by a large number of Grant's former supporters, but who had become dissatisfied with the administration. They called themselves Liberal Republicans. Greeley was also nominated by the Democrats, but did not receive their full vote. Again was Grant successful. The next general election (in 1876) found three parties contending. The new party, the National Greenbackers, "composed of men who desired national paper-money instead of national bank-notes, and who opposed the proposed resumption of specie payments," nominated Peter Cooper for president. They polled only about 80,000 popular votes. The contest was between Hayes and Tilden, and for three months the result was in doubt, but was finally declared to be in favor of Hayes (p. 304). Four years later, the Republicans, with Garfield as their candidate for president and Arthur for vice-president, "re-affirmed that the duties levied for the purpose of revenue should so discriminate as to favor American labor." The Democrats, declaring for "a tariff for revenue only," were defeated (p. 309). Favoring "taxes on fewer imported articles, bearing heaviest on articles of luxury and lightest on articles of necessity," they succeeded in electing Cleveland four years later (p. 315). Slavery in the United States. 329 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES. 1. Slavery, in one shape or another, began in America with the first explorations made by the Europeans. The first victims were the Indians. Even Columbus made Indian captives of the friendly natives, five hundred of Slavery. whom he sent to Spain to be sold. His brother, Bartholomew, sent three hundred. All the early Spanish explorers made slaves of the Indians. On the coast of Carolina, De Ayllon enticed as many as possible on board his two vessels, and with this supply of laborers for the plantations and mines of St. Domingo, treacherously took his departure (Note, p. 34). De Soto killed or enslaved the Indians who opposed him, as well as hundreds who did not oppose him. This practice was not confined to the Spaniards. The English were also guilty of it. Thomas Hunt, commanding one of Smith's vessels that visited the New England coast, kidnapped several Indians and sold them in Europe (¶ 2, p. 60). The Pequod war, as we know, resulted in the total destruction of the Pequods as a tribe; but the few survivors who were not able to find refuge in other tribes, or were not sent to the West Indies and sold, were held as slaves in their own country, and so kept till death released them (¶ 29, p. 70). Sad was the fate of King Philip, but sadder by far was the lot of his son, who was sold as a slave in Bermuda. Slavery in the Colonies, 2. Negro slavery was introduced into the West India islands long before the Dutch ship, in 1619, sailed up the James River, and landed twenty Africans (¶ 15, p. 58). The fact should be noted that, two years after this event, cotton-seed was, for the first time, planted at the South, for the growth of slavery and the culture of the cotton plant were closely connected. Tobacco was already (in 1621) grown, and was then produced entirely by slave labor ( 6, p. 114). For several years, only a few cargoes of negroes were brought to the colonies, and these came in Dutch ships; but, encouraged by the English, companies for carrying on the trade were formed, and even ships built and owned in New England were engaged in the business. In the course of time every one of the thirteen colonies had slaves. Some of the colonies remonstrated against the trade; but what could this avail so long as the English government favored the trade, and the king himself profited by the gains? In 1750 there were about two thousand slaves in Massachusetts; in New York city about a sixth of the population were slaves; in the tobacco-growing colonies, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, a third were slaves; in South Carolina, where rice was the principal production, there were more slaves than free persons. 3. Congress, after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, resolved that no more slaves should be imported; but the Constitution of the United States, which went into operation thirteen years later, permitted such importation until the year 1808. Thenceforth no more slaves could be brought into the country (See the Const., App., p. 12). Previous to the adoption of the Constitution, Congress passed an act which is commonly known as the "Ordinance of 1787." This prohibited slavery in all the territory north-west of the Ohio river. Massachusetts was the first State to abolish slavery; and the other Northern States, one after another, most of them by a system of gradual emancipation, followed the example. Though no more slaves were brought to the country, slaves continued to be bought and sold in the South as before. 4. Slave labor in the North was not profitable. The climate was cold, the soil rocky. But in the sunny and luxu The rious South, the African, it may be said, was at Cotton-Gin. home. The culture of rice, tobacco, and cotton, it was claimed, afforded the very kind of labor he could best perform. Yet the whole business in the interior of the Southern States was in a languishing condition, and the dis Slavery in the United States. 331 couraged inhabitants were beginning to leave for the promising West. They were cultivating cotton in small quantities, but it was difficult to separate the fibre from its seed. The work was slow, because it was all done by hand. A great change just then took place. Eli Whitney, of Massachusetts, went to Georgia and invented the cotton-gin. To the planter this invention at once opened the way to employment, wealth, and respectability: it set the whole South in motion. The difficulty of separating the cotton from its seed was removed (p. 186). Not a pound of cotton had been exported from the United States to the close of 1792. In 1793 the gin was invented. In 1794, one million five hundred thousand pounds were sent to Europe. Slavery thrived and "cotton was king." 5. When Maine applied for admission to the Union the number of States was twenty-two, and as these were equally divided, eleven of them being slave States and The eleven free, the southern members of Congress, Missouri unwilling that the North should have the control Compromise. in the Senate, objected to her admission. Just then the people of Missouri took measures to form a State government, and also applied for admission to the Union; but, as they possessed slaves, they wanted Missouri to be admitted without any conditions against slavery. After an angry discussion, lasting through months, Maine was admitted (1820). The contest, however, was at once renewed, for the people of the North, who were opposed to any increase of the number of slave States, were not willing to welcome Missouri with its Constitution permitting slavery. At length an important measure, known as the "Missouri Compromise," was adopted. By this it was agreed that, with the exception of Missouri, slavery should never be allowed to exist in any part of the territory of the United States west of the Mississippi, north of latitude 36° 30'. Missouri was then admitted (p. 220). 6. This agreement, the "Missouri Compromise," was observed for a third of a century; still the slavery question The Wilmot cropped out from time to time, "abolition societies" became numerous (p. 231), and when Texas, a slave State and former province of Mexico, asked to be admitted to the Union, the application, though stoutly resisted by most of the northern members of Congress, was finally granted (T5, p. 236). The annexation of Texas led to a war with Mexico, and this resulted in the cession to the United States of a large part of the Mexican territory. As slavery in Mexico had been abolished more than twenty years, the territory thus acquired was "free soil." In anticipation of this acquisition, Mr. Wilmot, for himself and other members of Congress from the free States, had offered an addition to the Mexican treaty, which soon became known as the "Wilmot Proviso." The object of this proviso was to preзerve forever as free soil the territory to be acquired (¶ 1, 5. 244). 7. Though the "Wilmot Proviso" did not meet with complete success in Congress, it became the foundation-stone of the Free Soilers," whose party cry (in 1848), Compromise with ex-President Van Buren as their presidential The 66 of 1850. candidate, was "Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men;" and who, themselves, became the founders of the Republican party, that (in 1856) gave John C. Fremont more than a million of votes to make him president (p. 253), and, four years later, put Lincoln at the head of the nation. California, a part of the territory acquired from Mexico, soon had a large population, and the people, opposed to slavery, sought admission to the Union. The application being resisted by Calhoun and other champions of the slave cause, a violent controversy followed, which ended in an agreement known as the "Compromise of 1850." This compromise abolished the slave trade in the District of Columbia, enacted the "Fugitive Slave Law," and admitted California as a free State (1, p. 247). Texas had claimed the entire territory west of her present limits, as far as the Rio Grande as a part of the compromise plan, this claim |